Wednesday, March 8, 2017

In my Data Science class this semester, students are working on a series of reports where they explore a freely-available dataset, use data to answer questions, and present their findings. After each batch of reports, I will publish the abstracts here; you can follow the links below to see what they found.

How do Europeans feel about Jewish, Muslim, and Gypsy immigration?

Apurva Raman and Celina Bekins

As tensions over immigration increase with Europe dealing with a
huge influx of refugees, some countries are more ready to accept
immigrants while others close their borders to them. To understand the
opinions of Europeans on immigration of particular groups, we
investigated if respondents from different countries in Europe have
consistent opinions toward Jews, Muslims, and Gypsies. We found that
countries with a strong preference against Jews or Gypsies will also
not prefer the other group. This does not hold true for Jews;
countries that are willing to allow Jews are not necessarily willing
to allow Muslims or Gypsies. Countries that are not accepting of Jews
are not accepting of any of these three groups. However, they all
preferred Jews to Muslims and Muslims to Gypsies.Report

Do Midwestern colleges have better ACT scores?

David Papp

It is often rumored that colleges in the Midwest prefer ACT scores
while colleges in other regions prefer SAT Scores. The goal of this
article is to explore the relationship between SAT and ACT scores in
the Midwest and other regions. The data used was collected from the US
Department of Education for the years 2014-15. Comparing just the
means of ACT scores shows that the Midwest scores slightly higher on
average: 23.48 vs 23.17. However, a better statistic might be to
compare the ratio of ACT/SAT scores. The Midwest has a slightly higher
ratio (0.969) than other regions (0.960). Although we cannot deduce
any causation, we can draw inferences as to what causes these
differences. One explanation might be the fact that students applying
to Midwestern colleges spend more time studying for the ACT.Report

Rich or Poor: To Whom does it Matter More?

Kaitlyn Keil

With issues like a growing wage gap, racism, and feminism at the
front of our nation's attention, it can seem that the wealthy only
care about getting more wealth, while equality only matters to those
who are disadvantaged. However, the results of the European Social
Survey of 2014 suggests that those with money do not value wealth a
significant amount more than those of lower income brackets, and
equality is not only valued at the same level across income brackets,
but is consistently rated as more important than
wealth.Report

Do More Politically Informed People Identify as Liberal?

Kevin Zhang

In the political arena, liberals often call their conservative
counterparts "ignorant" because they believe that the other
party doesn't know the facts, that they just don't know what's going
on in the world. This would suggest that being more informed on
political news and current events would make one more liberal. But
does it really matter though? Does being more informed about politics
make a person more liberal? Does it matter at all on how people end up
voting? This article will decide whether being an informed individual
truly results in believing a more liberal platform, or whether this
notion is just a mislead stereotype meant as a mudsling tactic. Data
analytics show that apparently a person has a high chance of holding
the same opinion regardless of whether they are informed individuals
or not. However, it seems that rather than leaning towards liberals,
being more informed has the potential to make people more polarized
towards either side and have stronger opinions on various political
topics in general. While being more informed might not lead an
increase in liberal thoughts, it might very well make people better
able to cast a more thoughtful and representative vote. Report

Money might buy you some happiness

Sungwoo Park

Does money buy you happiness? It's a decades old question that people have been wondering about. Data from the General Social Survey on the respondent's income and happiness level seem to suggest that people with high income tend to be happier than people with low income. Also, the data show that people with high income value the feeling of accomplishment and the importance of the job in their work more than people with low income do.Report

Higher paid NBA players are (probably) deserving

Willem Thorbecke

The motivating question was to find out whether or not there existed a connection between the salary of an NBA player and his performance in the league. Using the statistic Player Efficiency Rating (PER), an NBA statistic commonly used to measure a player's overall performance in the league, I compared player salaries and performances. With a correlation of 0.5 between salaries and PERs across the leauge, as well as a Spearman Correlation of 0.4, I came to the conclusion that there was a slight correlation between the two variables, and thus higher paid NBA players may be deserving of their paychecks.Report

Murder, Ink — A statistical analysis of tattoos in the Florida prison system

Joey Maalouf, Matthew Ruehle, Sean Carter

We examine the claims made in an Economist article on prison
tattoos. Examining a publicly-available inmate database, we found that
there are several noticeable trends between tattoos and types of
criminal conviction. Our results are not necessarily causative, and
may reflect either societal biases or demographic trends. Nonetheless,
the data demonstrates a strong correlation between different
categories of "ink" and criminal classifications.Report

Are more selective or expensive colleges worth it?

William Lu

As costs to attend college increase, an increasing number of high
school seniors are left wondering if they should or must select a more
affordable college. Many Americans go to college not just to gain a
higher education, but also to increase their earning potential later
in life. Using US Department of Education College Scorecard data, I
found that going to a more expensive college could potentially make
you more money in the future, that more selective colleges don't
necessarily cost more, and that more selective colleges don't
necessarily make you more money in the
future.Report

Are Diseases of the Heart Seasonal?

Radmer van der Heyde

In this report, I sought to answer the question: does heart disease have seasonality like that of Influenza? To answer this, I explored the CDC's Wonder database on the underlying causes of death on the monthly data for the state of California. Based on my results, the majority of heart diseases show some seasonality as the dominant frequency component is at the frequency corresponding to a period of 1 year.Report